Diamonds And Dust: 54 - Boegoeberg
...We let Thys drive the last part as he was the best off-road driver in our mob. The Landrover seemed to slip sideways a few times and it was not an enjoyable experience. We seemed to hang precariously as we inched up the track. It was not a place to stop and I’m sure the vehicle would have slid down the hill if we had....
Malcolm Bertoni went exploring in Namibia, where he worked at a diamond mine.
To read earlier chapters of Malcolm's vivid account of his experiences please visit http://www.openwriting.com/archives/diamonds_and_dust/
To obtain a copy of his book click on http://www.equilibriumbooks.com/diamonds.htm
There were some great places in the Sperrgebied and we tried to visit as many of them as possible. This was not a planned undertaking but we did try and see as much of the area as we could. Most of us knew that it wouldn’t be possible to do this sort of thing again so we tried to make the most of it. We used to spend many a weekend driving around the area exploring.
Boegoeberg was one of the first places we explored. It was a range of rocky hills about 30-35 kms north east of Affenrucken and the actual main hill itself would have been about 1500 ft high. There was a track of sorts and not too difficult to follow, even though it was quite sandy. We had to be careful when crossing the Oranjemund-Luderitz road that was used by the company, but otherwise it was relatively easy going. The last 200 or 300 metres up the hill was nerve wracking as it was on a 45 degree angle on the side of the hill which was all rock. We let Thys drive the last part as he was the best off-road driver in our mob. The Landrover seemed to slip sideways a few times and it was not an enjoyable experience. We seemed to hang precariously as we inched up the track. It was not a place to stop and I’m sure the vehicle would have slid down the hill if we had. When we left I walked down the 300 metres and met the Landrover at the bottom, even though everyone called me chicken.
The actual hill had a radio communications tower on it and a few sheds with batteries and radio equipment. How the batteries were charged I can’t remember and I’m not sure if it was solar powered, as solar power was not in use at the time, as far as I can remember.
The communications tower was used by security for their communications network. Everything was unlocked and we could just walk in and do as we wanted. Not very good security. The first time we went there we just listened to the DDs talking on the radio. On the second trip, we got a bit more daring and played around with the radio hand piece, making strange sounds into the mike. There would be 10 seconds silence after this, as if everyone was trying to figure out what the noises were.
We were very tempted to turn off the equipment as this would seriously screw up the communication network but didn’t, as the network was used for emergencies as well. But it was tempting. One of the guys left a note in heavily disguised writing saying that we had visited, but we never heard anything. Perhaps security were too embarrassed to acknowledge anything.
